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RE: '75 Bricklin

To: "Olenick, Jamison" <Olenick@ssims.nci.nih.gov>,
Subject: RE: '75 Bricklin
From: jblair@exis.net (John T. Blair)
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 16:53:41 -0500
At 11:13 AM 3/7/97 -0500, Olenick, Jamison wrote:

>Hey Pugs,
> Glad to hear that i am not the only one.
> My brick has 40K miles but has been sitting for 8-9 years.  I have
> to begin to fix and rebuild everything possible to be able to get 
> it onto the road.  I also had to replace the water pump, radiator,
> etc (not to mention using the Marvels Mystery Oil trick to free the 
> seized motor)(which is running really well right now).  I bought a
> carb from a 85 mustang 5.0 (yet to go on) I still have to buy the 
> master cyllinder and the power brake booster.  My brakes seem to be
> in good shape otherwise.

Jamie & Pugs,

   Boy you guys are lucky.  Don't know how long my car was sitting,
but like yours mine has 38,000+ mi. on it.  However, I've never 
driven it.  At one time in its life it found its way to a chop
shop.  When the PO went to check on his car, there was $16,000 worth
of damage.  The entire interior is missing except the dash, along
with the outter door skins, the A piller covers inside & out and
it needed a new roof.

  I bought it in 88 and have never driven it.  I finally got to
start tearing it down in 93 for a complete frame off restoration.

By the way Jamie, are you a member of BI?  I've been writting a 
series on the restoration of my car since about 93.  I thing they
have printed about 10 articles so far.

> What other problems might i encounter.?

  One area prone to rust (for those that didn't read my article on
Bricklins and Rust) is the lower part of the steel door frame and 
the sill plates.  4 of the body mounting bolts are located in each
of the A & B pillars.  If you haven't I'd suggest you remove the
covers, and squart some WD40 down in there and look at trying to
break the bolts loose.  If the don't come, don't force them.  If
you break one off, you'll have to pull the body to fix it.  I had
1 of the 4 bolts come out, 2 broke off, and the 4th one I couldn't
do anything with.  So I had to jack the body off the chassis and
litteraly tear the bolt through the rusted sill plate.  I've had
to cut off the 4 body mounting pads, make new ones, make new nuts,
and capture plates and weld all that stuff back together.  Not to
mention almost every piece of metal reinforcement for the body
was shot and I've had to fabricate new pieces.

> I have been working on the car for the last two summers and have
> gotten a little discouraged when i would work on it when i would
> find problem after problem.

Boy Jamie do I know that feeling.  However, I'm starting to see the
light at the end of the tunnel.  I rolled the chassis out of the
garage - on her own 4 wheels - for the 1st time since June of 93 on
Jan 4th 97.  I've gotten the engine cleaned and painted, and trying
to get the xmission ready.  Hopefully in the next week or 2, I'll
get that in the chassis.  Then comes replacing the sill plates.

Once that's done, I'm on the home streach.  With any luck it should
be on the road in about another year to year and a half.

John

John T. Blair  WA4OHZ          email:  jblair@exis.net
Va. Beach, Va                  Phone:  (757) 495-8229

48 TR1800    48 #4 Midget  65 Morgan 4/4 Series V
     75 Bricklin SV1   77 Spitfire

The one with the most toys, wins!


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